It was in 1983, when he was still a student of applied math, that Laurent Ribardière understood the importance of the advent of personal computing. It was then that he wrote his first file management software, ABC Base. A year later, in order to publish his software, he created the company ACI, known as 4D since March of 2000, where he remains the majority shareholder.

As a visionary and innovator, Laurent is responsible for many industry "firsts" by 4D, including being - from the outset - the first graphical relational database management system in 1985, and by 1987 the first of the breed to be 32-bit. Since the 1990s, he has led 4D to be the first RDBMS with integrated client-server capability, the first database with an integrated Web server, and the first integrated Dynamic Application Partitioning system. In 2012, after over three years of research & development, Laurent piloted the launch of Wakanda, the world's first development platform based on a full JavaScript stack.

Laurent has built a highly competitive group with an established reputation and a dynamic approach to new technologies.

Eric Teissandier

CEO of 4D Group

Prior to joining 4D, Eric Teissandier founded and ran Bewan in 1995, becoming one of the leaders in the triple-play (internet, telephony & TV) market for telecom operators thanks to its multiplatform middleware. He developed the Bewan brand in the Wi-Fi, PLC and router market. In 2010 he sold Bewan to Pace PLC, the UK company that is the world leader in cable decoders.

After spending over two years as Senior VP of Gateway Engineering at Pace, Eric joined 4D SAS, taking over the position of CEO in October 2013. He is also acting in the capacity of Director of Sales for 4D France.

Asmae Benkirane

Executive Vice President &Deputy CEO of 4D Group
President & CEO of Wakanda SAS

Asmae Benkirane, a 1989 graduate of the Ecole Centrale d'Electronique (France), began her career as an IT engineer at Roland Moreno Technology, inventor of the smartcard. In July 1991, she joined 4D as a product manager, and in 1994 was named Director of R&D, then subsequently Director of Engineering, France, and VP of Engineering, Worldwide.

Today as executive vice president, she assists the CEO and the rest of the executive team in strategic decisions and advisory functions, from a broad view of the company through business and technology capacities. Furthermore, Asmae continues her role in engineering development at 4D.

Laurent Esnault

VP of Engineering

Laurent Esnault is a graduate of the renowned École Centrale Paris, one of France's oldest and most prestigious schools of engineering.

He began his career with 4D as the Program Manager for 4D Calc, then moving on to the Program Manager role for 4D for Oracle. He started on the track toward development with 4D Open for AppleScript, the 4D v6 debugger, and making performance improvements to 4D v6.5, for which he became the Development Team Leader, as well as for subsequent versions.

He now uses his wealth of experience with 4D as Vice President of Engineering, overseeing development efforts across the entire line of 4D products.

Thomas Maul

VP of Strategy, 4D Product Line

Being the proud owner of one of the first Macintosh computers in Germany back in 1984, Thomas soon became a professional software developer, using programming languages like Turbo Pascal and C to create both custom and standard software products. Getting a demonstration of a beta version of 4D at an Apple Computer Developer conference in Germany in 1986, he quickly switched to using 4D for daily development.

When 4D's German subsidiary was created in 1988, Thomas joined the company as Technical Director, helping to build the 4D developer community in both Germany and Austria. After many years supporting customers with technical problems and being increasingly involved in sales and management issues, he was promoted to Managing Director for 4D Germany in 1999.

As a member of the executive board since 2005, he became part of worldwide strategy of the company, leading to his current position as Vice President of Strategy, 4D Product Line, responsible for defining and executing the overall strategy for the 4D product line in relation to the Program, R&D, Sales and Marketing teams.

Laurent Esnault

VP of Engineering

Laurent Esnault, a graduate of the renowned École Centrale Paris, one of France's oldest and most prestigious schools of engineering.

He began his career with 4D as the Program Manager for 4D Calc, then moving on to the Program Manager role for 4D for Oracle. He started on the track toward development with 4D Open for AppleScript, the 4D v6 debugger, and making performance improvements to 4D v6.5, for which he became the Development Team Leader, as well as for subsequent versions.

He now uses his wealth of experience with 4D as Vice President of Engineering, overseeing development efforts across the entire line of 4D products.

Jean Laguerre

Director of Quality Assurance

Jean is a true 4D veteran, having joined the company in 1987 as a Tech Support Manager. Over the last two decades he has taken the reins of Quality Assurance, ensuring the reliability not only of all past versions of 4D, but of all future products, as well.

Mr. Laguerre developed the QA engineering system currently in place at 4D, and has since advanced to become Director of Quality Assurance, where he is actively involved in 4D's engineering efforts.

Aziz Elghomari

Director of Services & Support

With a degree in Information Technology, Aziz kicked off his career as a C/C++ developer with Galderma France, KPMG Consulting, and the Ministry of Finance.

He then joined 4D in 1997 as a Support Manager for third-party plug-ins. In 2001, he became manager of Tech Support, France, manager of International Tech Support in 2005, and manager of Training Services shortly thereafter.

Today, as Director of Services and Support, Aziz manages a team dedicated to new services adapted to customer needs, such as training, tech support, code audits, benchmarking, knowledgebases, webinars and more.

Eric Teissandier

CEO of 4D Group

Prior to joining 4D, Eric Tessandier founded and ran Bewan in 1995, becoming one of the leaders in the triple-play (internet, telephony & TV) market for telecom operators thanks to its multiplatform middleware. He developed the Bewan brand in the Wi-Fi, PLC and router market. In 2010 he sold Bewan to Pace PLC, the UK company that is the world leader in cable decoders.

After spending over two years as Senior VP of Gateway Engineering at Pace, Eric joined 4D SAS, taking over the position of CEO in October 2013. He is also acting in the capacity of General Manager for 4D, Inc.

Thomas Maul

Managing Director, Northern Europe

Thomas joined 4D Deutschland GmbH in 1988 as Technical Director, helping to build the 4D developer community in both Germany and Austria. He took over as territory manager for Germany and Austria in 1999, and since 2007 has been Managing Director, Northern Europe.

Before coming to 4D, he worked for several years as a 4D developer and as a C developer, after having completed his education in the field of Sales.

Damon Carley

Managing Director, Australasia and Japan

Educated in Sydney, Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce through the University of Western Sydney and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia.

After serving as Chief Operating Officer of Hong Kong-based Powerlan Limited, Damon joined 4D in 2002, creating the 4D Australasia subsidiary of 4D SAS. During that time, 4D Australasia has grown 400% compared with the revenue generated by the previous distributor in the region.

Damon is now Managing Director of 4D Australasia and 4D Japan.

Jim Sobczak

VP of Sales & Services for 4D, Inc.

Jim’s career in tech began in 1995, supporting products developed by StarNine Technologies in Berkeley California. In 1996 he moved into sales of StarNine’s email products and WebSTAR (the first personal web server on MacOS). When 4D acquired StarNine in 2000, Jim talents were immediately recognized and he lead 4D’s OEM Program and later became Director of Outside Sales.

In early 2014, Jim became the 4D Inc. representative to the 4D worldwide sales organization. In 2015, Jim, joined the Executive Team within 4D Group.

Jim brings a combination of technical experience and a dedication to customers that is rare to find